Monday, June 22 top news briefs
Hello, welcome to The Daily Moth! It is Monday, June 22. Hope your weekend was good. Here are top news briefs.
There was a noose placed inside of NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace’s garage in Talladega, Alabama. Wallace is the only black driver in NASCAR’s top racing level. Two weeks ago he said confederate flags shouldn’t be allowed in NASCAR events, and NASCAR quickly moved to prohibit the flags in their venues. So, the noose that was found in Wallace’s garage on Sunday has prompted investigations by NASCAR and the FBI because it is an apparent act of hate and intimidation. The race was postponed from yesterday to today because of bad weather. Wallace tweeted yesterday that the incident serves as a painful reminder of how much further we have to go as a society and how persistent we out be in the fight against racism. He said he won’t give in or back down.
President Donald Trump’s rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma on Saturday was attended by between 6,000 to 12,000 people, and the arena was not as packed as the Trump campaign anticipated. The rally came and went without any major incidents or confrontations on the streets. There were some media reports that said TikTok users and Korean pop music fans made thousands of fake reservations for the rally, which falsely inflated expectations. It was a trolling act. The Trump campaign said the low turnout was because of the fake news media warning about Covid-19 and protests for racial justice.
During the Tulsa rally, Trump said he told his staff to slow down coronavirus testing so there won’t be a higher case total. Trump said today that he thinks we are testing too much and that’s why there are rising cases in multiple states. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D) said Trump is trying to hide the impact of the virus and this means more Americans will die.
This is a graphic from USAToday that shows which states have rising cases and which states have declining cases. The states in purple have rising cases, while the blue states have shrinking cases. You’ll see that a lot of rising cases are among the west and the midwest and the south, while the entire northeastern region has shrinking cases.
As of this afternoon, the U.S. has 2.3 million confirmed cases of Covid-19 with 120,000 deaths and 622,000 recoveries. The second-most cases is in Brazil with over 1 million cases. Third is Russia with almost 600,000 cases, and India is in fourth with 425,000 cases. In North America, Mexico has 180,500 cases, while Canada has 103,000 cases.
A NYPD officer was seen on film using a chokehold on a Black man. The incident was at Rockaway Beach in Queens. The Black man’s identity is not known, but he was unconscious in the video. Someone shouted for the officer to stop using a chokehold, and he let go. The man was later alert and walking, but on the floor he was unconscious. The officer was suspended without pay and is now under investigation for the chokehold. The NYPD said they detained the man because he threw something from a trash bin towards them. Chokeholds are banned in New York and many Black Lives Matter activists are demanding police departments to ban the use of chokeholds, as well as kneeling on necks and other acts of excessive force. The news about this incident has become widespread in the wake of George Floyd’s death. Eric Garner died in 2014 in New York City after an NYPD officer placed him in a chokehold. So if any officer uses a chokehold, it will trigger greater scrutiny and a push for changes to ban chokeholds.
Today President Trump signed an executive order to freeze immigration worker visas, explaining that his administration is doing this to protect U.S. workers during massive job losses because of Covid-19. The Washington Post said it could mean that 525,000 jobs will not be able to be filled by a foreign worker. This includes skilled workers and other sectors. The top three industries affected are technology, landscaping, and forestry.
That is all the top news briefs for today. See you tomorrow and stay with the light!
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/22/sports/autoracing/bubba-wallace-noose-nascar.html
https://twitter.com/BubbaWallace/status/1274898390288121861/photo/1
https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/21/politics/trump-rally-tulsa-attendance/index.html
https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2020/06/21/tiktok-teens-kpop-fans-punk-trump-tulsa-rally/
https://www.usatoday.com/storytelling/coronavirus-reopening-america-map/
https://www.axios.com/immigration-ban-h1b-visa-coronavirus-trump-8202a261-756b-4363-97cc-584c1909d686.html